Is Kate playing Blanche DuBois or Mia Farrow?

Wednesday

Oct 16, 2013 at 6:00 AM

T he other day I remarked that Cate Blanchett's modern take on Tennessee Williams' famous character Blanche DuBois, in Woody Allen's new movie "Blue Jasmine," was the female Oscar performance of the year to beat.

I wasn't thinking at the time that life follows art, but then I received an email from Vincent Petrarca who commented: Don't you think there is as much Mia Farrow in "Jasmine" as there is Blanche DuBois? Especially in that final confrontation with Alec Baldwin.

(If you haven't seen this film, the leading lady  Cate- blows the whistle on her criminal husband  played by Alec Baldwin  and the chips fall where they may. Everybody loses. It's as if in real life Mrs. Bernie Madoff had revealed her husband's shenanigans, which she didn't.)

So did Woody Allen make his leading lady Cate less appealing and tempted toward her own fate than Tennessee Williams did his pitiful needy character, Blanche?

And was Allen thinking about his ill-fated, real-life experience with Mia Farrow, who is still, evidently, hoping to bring him down? I confess I haven't a clue.

Well then, have you wearied of comic-book characters brought to life on the big screen? Too bad. Most of these movies make big bucks. The latest from the Marvel stable of superheroes is  I kid you not  Ant-Man. And here I thought I was pretty good knowing who Aquaman was! Anyway, Ant-Man is a brilliant scientist who can change his size.

The two big names up for on-screen shrinkage are Paul Rudd and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Rudd is adorable, and an excellent actor, but his career has mostly consisted of pairing up with every attractive actress in Hollywood for a long series of rom-coms. Gordon-Levitt is Hollywood's hottest-young-actor-on-the-rise. (His current "Don Jon" is a sizzling, funny, spot-on take on 21st-century sexual mores; pornography addiction and what passes for dating these days.) And he's already appeared in a similar film, "The Dark Knight Rises," although he had no special powers, other than his charisma.

By the way, there was some concern  mostly from male comics  that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler didn't have what it took to host the Golden Globes successfully. They were wrong. How wrong? Tina and Amy have signed on for Globes co-hosting duties until 2015.